Devin James Bolden was working inside Insomnia Cookies when he heard the brakes and witnesses' horrified screams . "A girl I remember was hysterically crying, the loudest screaming and terror I'd ever seen,'' he said.

Close calls between walkers and drivers on the busy north-south artery are not that unusual, Bolden said. "There's a lot of people that play chicken, I guess you could say, with trying to cross the road,'' he said. "Some cars stop and some cars don't stop.''

Pedestrians jaywalk because they don't want to walk north to cross South Highland at Midland or south to cross near the Norfolk Southern Railroad tracks.

The development happening along Highland and throughout and around the University of Memphis campus is a great thing but anyone who spends time in the area knows that the traffic on Highland if far, far too fast. If anyplace in the city should be pedestrian friendly, it should be the area around the city’s main university. The development encourages more pedestrian traffic, which is good, but the area badly needs more infrastructure to slow traffic and give pedestrians safer, more convenient access. This help is on the way, but too late for one victim. Maybe better pedestrian infrastructure should have preceded rather than followed commercial development.

Let’s Dance: Thank goodness the so-called “White Lives Matter” racist rallies in Middle Tennessee were not a Charlottesville repeat. Coverage here, where people of decency outnumbered racist clowns by a significant magnitude.

"It's always great to be back in the coolest city on Earth," said [Billy] Gibbons, co-founder of ZZ Top, the Texas rock band inducted into the first Memphis Music Hall of Fame class in recognition of its 1980s commercial heyday, when it recorded its most popular albums and hit singles at Midtown's Ardent Studios.

Gibbons, his trademark chest-length beard now making him look more like an elder statesman than a bad hombre, helped induct both the Memphis Horns and Roy Orbison. During the Orbison segment, he added guitar licks and a proud "Mercy!" to a cover of "Oh, Pretty Woman," which he performed with Memphis singers John Paul Keith and Vicki Loveland. Probably the city's most talented heir to the rockabilly-country tradition that brought Orbison to Memphis to record at Sun, Keith sang with bell-like clarity and nailed the trilled cat-in-heat “mrrrrooowllll” that has made the 1964 No. 1 hit the most popular of Orbison's recordings.

The Orbison tribute also brought Memphis expat Valerie June back to town, for an unusual performance in which she bounced onstage in a flouncy green skirt, sans guitar, and leant her expressive eccentric twang to Orbison's "Only the Lonely."

Baker Time: Memphis songwriter Julien Baker, whose Ardent Studios-recorded second album, “Turn Off the Lights,” was released on Friday, made her national television debut on Saturday.

Knowledge Bowl Recap: Collierville 485, Whitehaven 95: Knowledge Bowl is back! Ok, probably not many are as excited about this as The 9:01, but we’re committed here to shining an extra weekly spotlight on our fiercest high school competitors: the valedictorians, National Merit finalists, mathletes, and future “Jeopardy!” contestants who are secretly (or maybe not so secretly) our coolest kids. Also, it gives The 9:01 a crutch to lean on every Monday, late October through late May. We’ll take it!

Last season in our inaugural recaps (current Memphis Business Journal editor Greg Akers and I -- each of us Knowledge Bowl alums -- tag-teamed overlong recaps one season on a Memphis Flyer blog) we got a late start and missed the first few matches. Not this year. And by getting in on the ground floor, hopefully we’ll not only see a champion crowned this year (ICYMI) but will dispense some 9:01 Knowledge Bowl Awards at the end of the season. But enough housekeeping, on with the recap:

While The 9:01 is an unabashed fan of all Knowledge Bowl competitors, we have to admit to having a little extra rooting interest in Memphis public schools. But the Tigers of Whitehaven ran into a bit of a buzzsaw in this opener in the form of the Dragons of Collierville, who advanced last season and returned two senior starters in captain Nima and round high scorer Richard.

The get-to-know-the-teams segment is typically a space where we learn what extracurricular activities students are involved in, where they want to go to college, etc. But last year Collierville had a running gag where each member mentioned activities they liked to engage in alongside Richard. It was like their own version of the NBA pre-game line where everyone has special handshakes. Collierville’s esprit de corps was in fine form again this year, with each teammate revealing a favorite (animated) movie, favorite animal, and favorite Saturday morning activity.

Richard had a game high 120 points on the buzzer, exhibiting a broad range of knowledge (grammar, earth science, meteorology, Anne Frank, First Ladies -- whatever you’ve got) and a love of “Tangled” and unicorns. (Not a real animal, c’mon Richard.) Senior Nick also cracked triple digits on the buzzer (Canadian history, Renaissance art, Moby Dick) while repping “Castle in the Sky” (Miyazaki, nice) and the Rhodesian Ridgeback (a South African dog breed). Nima had an itchy trigger finger, buzzing in early with three wrong answers, a five-point penalty each time. We’ll see if his aggression helps or hurts in a tighter match, but he still topped 50 points while extolling “Toy Story 3” and the paddlefish. Sri, the lone junior starter on either team, also topped 50 points while putting “Finding Nemo” and the winged caterpillar (“some people call them butterflies”) on a pedestal. While each of his teammates copped to science-y Saturday morning activities, Sri claims to spend his weekend down time “making sick beats.”

Collierville went large on Extra Credit questions, racking up 130 points, but stumbled on the Pop Quiz on postal codes, misidentifying “Alaska” as “AL” (it’s “AK”) on its third answer. Whitehaven was strong in the Pop Quiz, getting seven correct answers on Tennessee facts before running out of time. They went further on this than I would have, even knowing the state flower (the iris). Surprisingly, though, they passed on the question “Who’s the head coach of Tennessee’s only NBA team.” Sounds like David Fizdale needs to do an event at Whitehaven.

Props to Whitehaven senior captain Aaron, a violist who does origami, for navigating his team to a big Pop Quiz score. Fellow senior Mya was Whitehaven’s top scorer on the buzzer. She’s also a self-described advocate for social justice who is working on a website that showcases minority businesses in Memphis. Rounding out the Whitehaven team were seniors Jac Kaye (second alto in the school choir who wants to be a business major at CBU) and Karla (a Key Club member who wants to study medicine).

Collierville, which looks like a contender, will move on to the second round. Up next week: Germantown vs. Douglass. You can watch Knowledge Bowl at 9 a.m. every Saturday morning on WREG Channel 3.

Quick-and-Pop: I can’t believe I missed the Chandler Parsons Game. Seriously, those better have enjoyed Zoo Boo. As one reader noted on social media, it was like a year-and-a-half of pent-up emotion all coming out in 20 minutes of basketball. In the form of jump shots and one down-the-lane dunk.

Can he do it again? Let’s not make this game a new bar to clear. Let’s savor it for what it was and hope it portends more effective games to come at more graspable levels of production. There was never a question of whether Parsons was good or whether his skills would help the Grizzlies. The question has only been whether his body would allow him to be his best self, or something even close to it. For one night, at least, the gratifying answer was yes.

Parsons’ explosion obscured a rather incredible display of team defense. Perhaps we’ll explore that more in this Friday’s Pick-and-Pop. By pulling away from Houston early in the fourth quarter, this was the first Grizzlies win where David Fizdale didn’t need to settle on a crunch-time lineup. There was no crunchtime. But that nightly lineup journey was the lead topic of this past Friday’s Pick-and-Pop, which is also full of other goodies, including Mario Chalmers dance moves, Marc Gasol’s advances in basketball taxonomy, and James Ennis flying down the court. Check it out ICYMI.

The team returns to the court tonight against the Charlotte Hornets, which will make for a battle of two of the NBA’s best early season defenses each featuring -- no coincidence -- a star (or “star”) center. The Marc Gasol-Dwight Howard matchup is always suffused with mutual disdain. Soak it in. The Hornets arrive on the second night of a back-to-back after knocking off the Orlando Magic yesterday.

One final Grizzlies not unlikely to last: Check the NBA standings today. If early season records were postseason prophecy, then we’d be looking at a Motown vs. Stax/Hitsville vs. Soulsville NBA Finals. This probably won’t happen. (Ok, it almost certainly won’t happen.) But Music Gods should huddle with the Hoops Gods and make this happen someday.